The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast · Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, Rose de Castellane, Gregory Mill

Episode 153, 'Beautiful Veganism' with Vid Simoniti

March 8, 2026·52 min·4 clips

A philosopher who calls veganism morally superior but still eats fish explains why he can't live up to his own ideal.

1. The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast hosts a conversation between Dr Jack Symes and Dr Vid Simoniti on the relationship between beauty, aesthetics, and veganism. 2. Vid Simoniti is a philosopher of aesthetics at the University of Liverpool; Jack Symes is the host and describes Simoniti as working primarily in the philosophy of arts with broader interests in ethics. 3. The central question is whether there is a distinctively aesthetic argument for veganism, separate from the traditional moral arguments about suffering, death, and environmental harm. 4. Simoniti opens with the paradox that he is a pescatarian who believes veganism is morally superior — explained by his Aristotelian view of ethics as ideals of excellence one can admire without being obligated to live up to, rather than binding prohibitions. 5. He distinguishes veganism from other ideals of excellence: just as one can admire an excellent footballer without being a footballer, he admires veganism as a flourishing way of life in tune with nature without feeling legally bound to adopt it. 6. Simoniti explains that his relative comfort with eating fish, versus mammals, rests on fish appearing to have less-developed cognitive lives and a lower environmental footprint than beef, while acknowledging overfishing is also a genuine harm. 7. He rejects Martha Nussbaum's pescatarian argument (that fish lack self-continuity through time) and is similarly unmoved by probabilistic arguments to err on the side of caution for beings that might be subjects of lives. 8. Simoniti's 'bag of objections' to meat-eating includes gratuitous suffering in factory farming, the wrongness of death for most sentient animals, and the disproportionate contribution of beef production to greenhouse gas emissions. 9. His core aesthetic argument is that aesthetic appreciation of food should incorporate full knowledge of its origins: just as knowing a beautiful mole is cancerous should change one's view of it, knowing that meat comes from industrial factory farming should diminish the aesthetic quality of the meal. 10. Jack Symes pushes back with the genocide objection — that turning up at a concentration camp and saying 'this is ugly' rather than 'this is immoral' sounds like missing the point, and that the aesthetic framing may trivialise moral wrongs. 11. Simoniti responds by distinguishing true aesthetic experience from mere pleasure or distaste, drawing on the Kantian tradition: beauty is not 'I like this' but something like 'being at home in the world' or one's intellectual capacity in harmony with what one perceives. 12. He argues that aesthetic and moral arguments can run in parallel — a factory-farmed egg can be both a moral catastrophe and aesthetically deficient once full knowledge of its production is incorporated — and that the two analyses reinforce rather than replace each other. 13. Simoniti concedes he would eat a grandmother's meat-based casserole if served it, preferring not to aim for moral perfection and wanting to avoid hypocrisy; Jack Symes responds that this 'tiredness of being good' echoes a University of Liverpool colleague who reverted to eating meat after years of vegetarianism. 14. The 'slave at the dinner table' thought experiment asks whether a grandmother serving a casserole via an enslaved person in chains would override the social taboo against raising moral objections mid-meal; Simoniti agrees the comparison depends on contextual details. 15. On conversion strategies, Simoniti argues that direct dinner-table proselytising is counterproductive and even morally objectionable because it fails to respect the complexity of other people's moral lives and histories. 16. He praises art as a conversion medium because, unlike argument, it leaves the audience in an undecided space — citing the BBC series I May Destroy You (Michaela Coel) for staging a character who sabotages a vegan ad campaign, and Simon Amstell's mockumentary Carnage. 17. On political versus individual action, Simoniti argues that global moral progress on animal welfare is more likely to come through legislation — such as a tax on beef — than through individual consumer choices, though the two are connected. 18. The tone is lively and conversational, with both speakers comfortable deploying thought experiments, naming specific philosophers (Schopenhauer, Kant, Nussbaum, Singer), and admitting personal moral failures. 19. This episode is best suited to listeners interested in applied ethics and aesthetics who enjoy philosophical argument tested against personal practice. 20. Those looking only for a practical guide to veganism or for purely empirical content about nutrition and environment will likely find the philosophical framing too abstract.

As heard by us

A calm exchange about veganism, beauty, and the uneasy overlap between moral judgment and aesthetic response.

The episode starts with a brief side turn toward a new YouTube series, then settles into a steady, clear-minded discussion of beauty and veganism.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a conversation about the relationship between beauty and veganism.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast